So the story goes like this. Renee (the woman
I've been seeing lately) asks me to go to a wedding in Minnesota
with her. HMM. An entire weekend. She quickly added that her folks
live on Minnetonka, and her grandmother lives on Sugar Lake. In
other words, Renee is a smart woman...she got me to go by baiting
me with a sure thing...I can fish ;)

After a quick flight and a good night's rest, I
got up and scoped out Lake Minnetonka. Fair visibility from the
standpoint of what I normally see out my back door (Lake Como).
There was PLENTY of activity....aka. CARP running around and jumping
everywhere. Of course these guys in a boat come up and nail a largemouth,
about 14", right out of casting distance from where I stood.

Well a few hours later we were north and I got
to enjoy some more time on the water at Gull Lake while Renee went
to the Church for rehearsals. A blustering wind was coming in from
the lake which made casting difficult.

Looking around, the water was very clear, maybe
just a slight stain to it. I noted a dead largemouth floating along
shore, so at least we know those are present! Much of the afternoon
resulted in NOTHING. Within fly casting range from the dock there
was virtually NO structure...just occasional weeds popping up from
within the rock that lined the bottom.

But then I turned my sights on the very dock I
was standing on, somewhat "T" shaped. From the upper left
of the T I placed a cast about midway along the pier, and from out
of the shadows a figure emerged and engulfed my fly! WHEEEE... a
nice largemouth in the 12-14" range came FLYING out of the
water and landed at my feet...that was how hard I set the hook!
When he hit the water he came off and I was left to think "I
wish Renee had seen that...".

Oh well, we had a GREAT rehearsal dinner and I
met some great folks. One you guys would be interested in knowing
about was Nate, the son of "Walleye
Dan". We could've talked for HOURS about fishin...at the
very least it was cool to know that I wasn't the only fishin' nut
present! Heck they had been out on the lake earlier in the day fishin'
walleye (man I gotta do those on the fly at some point!). For those
who are interested, here's the survey
of Gull Lake.

After dinner, we had another drive over to Grandma's
house on Sugar Lake. We got there close to sunset...Grandma feeds
the bluegills so of course they were EVERYWHERE....rather than give
in to temptation I stayed with the Flying Bunny...as soon as it
hit the water a big bull gill slammed it. Nice fish but I was hoping
for something bigger. As dusk turned to night I got what i was looking
for; a fair-sized Rock Bass. At least the skunk was taken care of!
Evening was great, sitting and chatting with the lake just down
the hill. I hoped I would wake up EARLY on Sunday.